It is common practice in the oil and gas well drilling art to provide some form of support or platform for accommodating an operator or worker at a position above the floor of the derrick, particularly during a running of pipe or tubulars into the well, in order to assist in properly axially aligning the tubulars during the stabbing operation. Typically this is accomplished through the use of casing stabbing boards, which are hung or suspended on wirelines held within the derrick or drilling rig. Stabbing or casing baskets which travel up and down along a vertical track on the inside or outside of a derrick and which have a telescoping boom to move a basket away or towards vertical track are also known in the art.
However, the prior art stabbing boards and stabbing baskets suffer from a number of disadvantages, such as not provide for sufficient horizontal movement of the platform to allow an operator to be placed in sufficient proximity to the pipe or tubulars during stabbing operations, not being easily stowed away in compact format (so as to reduce interference with rig operations when such a platform is not needed) and not being able to easily, if at all, move around the pipe or tubulars during stabbing operations (so as to allow an operator to reach the other side of such pipe or tubular).
Accordingly, there still exists a need to for an improved stabbing basket that addresses these disadvantages.